"Within the Christian tradition, this rich illustration is a way of signifying the recognized importance of the text as being a sacred text," explains McKendrick, who is head of Western Heritage Collections at the British Library.

From the embellished arches of the "Golden Canon Table" -- a text from 6th or 7th century Constantinople on gold-painted parchment -- to a book of brightly colored gospels from 17th century Ethiopia, "The Art of the Bible" shows the development of the art and calligraphy used to express Christian religion over more than a thousand years.

"We're very aware that, for many people, this is a sacred, holy text but at the same time it has a historical development, and we wanted to portray that history as accurately as we possibly could," says Doyle, lead curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library.

A public duty

The book proved to be a labor of love for the authors, who took pains to ensure they were presenting a wide chronological and geographic spread that was representative of the many different styles of texts in the library's collection.

This meant they had to make some difficult decisions along the way.

"Choosing which manuscripts to include was so hard, a bit like saying which of your children do you love the most, because you love them all," says Doyle.